Quotes from Francois Fenelon

You really don't even own the present moment, for even this belongs to God.

How does our will become sanctified? By conforming itself unreservedly to that of God.

Let us endeavor to commence every enterprise with a pure view to the glory of God, continue it without distraction, and finish it without impatience.

Genuine good taste consists in saying much in few words, in choosing among our thoughts, in having order and arrangement in what we say, and in speaking with composure.

Good taste rejects excessive nicety.

There is nothing that is more dangerous to your own salvation, more unworthy of God and more harmful to your own happiness, than that you should be content to remain as you are.

Pure love is in the will alone; it is no sentimental love, for the imagination has no part in it; it loves, if we may so express it, without feeling, as faith believes without seeing.

The more you say, the less people remember.

Had we not faults of our own, we should take less pleasure in complaining of others.

Of all the duties enjoined by Christianity none is more essential and yet more neglected than prayer.

How can you expect God to speak in that gentle and inward voice which melts the soul, when you are making so much noise with your rapid reflections? Be silent and God will speak again.

God never ceases to speak to us, but the noise of the world without and the tumult of our passions within bewilder us and prevent us from listening to him

He who prays without confidence cannot hope that his prayers will be granted.

To pray is to desire; but it is to desire what God would have us desire.

Prayer is so necessary, and the source of so many blessings, that he who has discovered the treasure cannot be prevented from having recourse to it, whenever he has an opportunity.

When kings interfere in matters of religion, they enslave instead of protecting it.

All earthly delights are sweeter in expectation than in enjoyment; but all spiritual pleasures more in fruition than in expectation.

The wind of God is always blowing... but you must hoist your sail.

There is a set of religious, or rather moral, writings which teach that virtue is the certain road to happiness, and vice to misery in this world. A very wholesome and comfortable doctrine, and to which we have but one objection, namely, that it is not true.

If we were faultless we should not be so much annoyed by the defects of those with whom we associate.

God never makes us sensible of our weakness except to give us of His strength.

Make this simple rule the guide of your life: to have no will but God's.

A general rule for the good use of time is to accustom oneself to live in a continual dependence on the Spirit of God.

Time is given us that we may take care for eternity; and eternity will not be too long to regret the loss of our time if we have misspent it.